The Great Replacement Theory
Why Cannabis Will Continue to Take Market Share
Alcohol use is falling as cannabis use is rising…
Why are so many Americans turning to cannabis and away from alcohol?
Why are 70% of Americans now in favor of legalization?
Why are more states following the popular will of their constituents and legalizing the sale and consumption of cannabis despite the Federal government maintaining that cannabis is Federally illegal?
It’s simple.
Cannabis is just a much healthier and less toxic substitute for what Americans are already consuming.
Imagine you suffer from insomnia like I have in the past. You could take Ambien or other pharmaceutical alternatives. The problem is that these medications are only to be taken for very short periods (it is not recommended to be taken for more than 2 weeks). In addition, pharmaceuticals like Ambien lose their efficacy the more you take them and worse you wake up feeling groggy the next morning. Not to mention a whole host of possible scary side effects.
Or you could do what I and many others have done and take a low dose cannabis gummy, maybe one that contains the cannabinoid CBN, go to sleep and wake up as fresh as a daisy.
Now imagine you are in pain, let’s say your back hurts. You could be prescribed opioids. I’m not sure I have to go into great detail of the dangers of opioids, but beyond addiction potentially destroying your life, the other “smaller” side effects can be brutal. One former NBA all-star told me opioids recommended to him were eating holes in his stomach. And do I have to remind people that overdose deaths from pharmaceutical or synthetic opioids are now approximately 100,000 Americans every year?
Or you could smoke a joint, take an edible or drink a cannabis beverage and get similar relief with the only side effects being that you might want to eat a bunch of delicious snacks. The number of people who have overdosed and died from cannabis last year or the year before, zero.
Now imagine you wanted to relax after a workday, or maybe you want to have fun and laugh and throw caution to the wind, and you decided to have some beers or wine. Well, more than 140,000 Americans die every year from excessive alcohol use. This is not to mention the pain and suffering that comes from alcohol related problems like domestic violence or drunk driving. And what’s also fascinating is wherever cannabis is legalized auto insurance premiums go down. There is simply less drunk driving.
After indulging in several drinks, odds are that the following day, you will feel anywhere from really groggy to suffering from a bad hangover. With cannabis usage, there just isn’t the same hangover.
The study that really surprised me was that workers compensation claims go down when cannabis is legalized. That’s when you realize how many people take a whole variety of pills, drinks, etc to get through their workday to treat a variety of ailments and cannabis literally replaces what they were using, and they get injured less.
And this is why cannabis wins. It’s just better for you than the alternatives. Cannabis is just incredibly less toxic than alternatives and this is why it will continue to take market share.
And it’s not necessarily total replacement, but it could be that instead of 3-5 beers at a bar, you have a few puffs of a joint or a gummy and have just one beer. It could be that instead of full-strength opioid, you have less, and you consume cannabis.
Life is hard, people suffer. There will always be a need for pain relief, stress relief and a need to alter a person’s state of mind. Is cannabis completely harmless? Of course not. Can people develop problems from cannabis overuse? Of course. Is cannabis appropriate for kids? Absolutely not. But to those who are skeptical and fighting to keep prohibition alive, they are denying the fact that people are already consuming much harsher chemicals and substitutes.
Cannabis is the great replacement for many potential destructive alternatives, and that’s why I’m such a believer in its future. I’m proud to be an investor and advocate for its normalization and legalization. And based on the science and data, our society and world are simply better with legalized cannabis than without it.